


Drunker by the Second

by MeyerMansi



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drinking, M/M, Post-Episode: s01e18 Juno Steel and the Final Resting Place, You Decide, disclaimer i love juno with all my heart, i mean theoretically, is Peter a way worse liar when drunk or is alessandra just a really good detective, the end gets super meta because his character development makes me soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 08:04:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17915006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeyerMansi/pseuds/MeyerMansi
Summary: “That was quite rude of him. My condolences.” He’s speaking from experience, she realizes with a slow start. And Alessandra might be getting drunker by the second, but she’s not stupid, and so she connects the dots and feels her jaw drop until it might hit the counter.“Oh my god, you got played by Juno Steel.”orPeter and Alessandra get drunk together and roast Juno.





	Drunker by the Second

**Author's Note:**

> this is half crack but it was really fun to write. Hope you enjoy!

Alessandra needs to stop taking these kinds of cases.

By the time she’s stumbled into the dingy little dive bar, she’s been bribed, blackmailed and bruised. On top of that, she has nothing other than the knowledge that she’ll have to stay in a crappy motel away from her partner for another night. She groans at the thought and flops onto a bar stool, giving the bartender a tired salute. He acknowledges it with a nod and goes back to fiddling with something on his comms. 

 

It’s late, and the bar is nearly empty. Old Town has enough clubs that a tiny, silent place like this can go unnoticed by the nightlife crowd. The current customer base is comprised of a few people drinking themselves senseless in a corner and a couple getting slightly too affectionate in one of the booths. There’s only one other person at the bar itself, a man roughly her age. 

 

He’s very pretty. Not really her type, but he has sharp cheekbones and long eyelashes enough for her to get the appeal. He’s nursing a drink, some kind of liquor, and she can gauge that it’s probably not his first. His shoulders are slumped, strands of his slicked-back hair have started to fall across his face, and he’s frowning intently into his half-empty glass. Alessandra notes several cuts and bruises, mostly hidden by the neckline of his expensive shirt. She wordlessly signals the bartender for two more of what he’s having. The man looks like absolutely the kind of guy that would’ve been up to some shit approximately twelve hours ago. So, she takes a seat next to him and gives him her best jovial grin. With any luck, she can nip this investigation in the bud and be on a shuttle back home by the time the sun rises. 

“Hey.” He almost jumps, stalling the motion of his shoulders and turning it into a straightening of his posture instead. 

“Hello, there.” The bartender slides over the drinks and Alessandra picks one up, gesturing toward the other.  

“Can I interest you in some company?” He regards her, half-wary. 

“Thank you, but I’m--” She holds a hand up. 

“Not hitting on you.” She gestures around the half-deserted bar. “Just figured you’re alone and I’m alone, so why the hell not?” The man looks as though he’s making a much harder decision than the one she’s proposing. He comes to a conclusion and gives her a shrug. 

“Alright, then.” He takes the drink, and after a day like this Alessandra’s willing to call that victory. She takes her own and promptly downs it, feeling the burn as it slides down her throat. The man raises an eyebrow.

“Not bad.” She grins, slamming the glass a touch dramatically. 

“You weren’t planning on making this a drinking contest, I hope?” He wrinkles his nose.

“Hardly.” The man sips at his drink, smiling in a way that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Alessandra wipes at a few droplets on the bar, deciding on her tactic. 

“So, come here often?” He gives her a look. “Still not hitting on you, promise.” She amends quickly, and he laughs--a short, soft sound.

“No, actually. I’m leaving planetside first thing tomorrow, so I’m afraid this is my only visit to this...fine establishment.” He looks at the couple in the booth briefly before looking away. Alessandra nods. Leaving the planet wasn’t necessarily incriminating, but it was unusual, and in her line of work those were often one and the same. 

“Not from around here, then?”

“No, not exactly.” Alessandra leans back in her chair, aiming for friendly interest instead of information fishing.

“What brought you to lovely Hyperion City, then?” she asks it with all the sarcasm of someone that has lived there for far, far too long. That at least is genuine, but her friendly inquiry still fails to land. The man lifts his drink up, studying the light falling through it. 

“Lots of questions, Detective.”  _ Well, shit _ . He sees her expression and points to her hip. “You’re wearing a trench coat and hiding a blaster, it’s not the hardest deduction to make.” Alessandra flips the coat over to cover the blaster, but it’s a little late for that. 

“Yeah, okay. Name’s Alessandra Strong.”

“A pleasure _ ,  _ Miss Strong.”

“I’m not interrogating you.”

“Oh, no, no, that’s perfectly fair; I’m a suspicious-enough-stranger drinking alone in arguably the worst bar in Hyperion City, which is saying a lot. Chances are I  _ am  _ up to no good. So, by all means, continue!” She raises an eyebrow at him.

“Sassy.”

“I do try.” He takes a long sip of his drink.

“You got a name?”

“No.” He doesn’t elaborate.

“Seriously?” He taps a chin to his finger in mock-consideration. 

“Well, I do know who you are, so I guess it’s only fair. You can call me Rex.” 

“Rex.” She holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you.” He takes it and they do an awkward clasping handshake. Alessandra can feel herself getting drunker. She signals the bartender.

“Refill?” She mutters it in the general direction of Rex.

“Oh, please.” He finishes the drink she’d bought him. “If you must know, Detective,” Alessandra perks up. “I came to Hyperion City for several reasons, and I’m leaving it for several reasons that are unrelated to the first. Mostly.” Irritation curls in her chest, and she feels the alcohol heightening her competitive spirit. She’s gonna get  _ something  _ on Rex, whether he’s involved or not, so she leans back and flicks her eyes across his form, trying to find definitive tells.

“Real specific.”

“Indeed.” His clothes are nice but wrinkled in a way that suggests they were packed tightly. The bag near him confirms this. Probably came from a hotel. Drinking alone at night in a city he was trying to get out of...It  _ could  _ mean he was smuggling drugs, or…

Alessandra stops leaning back and smirks.

“Boy problems.” Rex chokes on the last sip of his drink, knee-jerk reaction showing her that she’s right before he can cover it with a mask of indifference. 

“I beg your pardon?”

“Or girl problems, but it’s usually the boys that end with heavy drinking. Am I right?” Rex sighs.

“I suppose I’m being quite obvious.” She shrugs.

“I  _ am _ a detective, and you’re pretty easy to read, honestly.” He gives her an incredulous look.

“Alessandra, I can safely say you are the first and only person to have ever told me that.” Alessandra laughs. She’s certain now that Rex is probably involved with shady shit, but that it’s also not the shady shit she’s looking for tonight, and so she can’t bring herself to care. He’s a good conversationalist and a better drinking buddy, and so as the bartender slides them a new round she turns to him, crossing her legs and giving him a sympathetic smile.

“I’m sorry.” Rex shrugs.

“Don’t be. I shouldn’t have expected anything. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same, anyway. It’s just...a lot happened, and I think I made a bit of a fool of myself.” Been there, done that, Rex. He takes a quick sip from his glass. The statement itself is impressively generic, but she gets the sense that for him, that probably qualifies as oversharing. 

“Still sucks.  _ Iffff  _ it makes you feel better,” she starts, and Rex gives her a look like it probably will. “Sometime last year I ended up working with another detective in Hyperion City. Bastard stole from me and I tracked him down, and we ended up hitting it off pretty well. Anyway, case ends and he’s suddenly all ‘Alessandra, this isn’t gonna work.’ Turns out he was still hung up on some guy. Felt like a bit of an idiot for that one, but I think it worked out in the long run.” She swirls the liquor around in her glass. “I hope he treated that guy right, at the very least.” It’s a genuine sentiment, but Rex gives her a look of utter disbelief. She frowns but then realizes he’s hardly looking at her at all. When he speaks, his voice is casual, but his fingers dig into the bar.

“That was quite rude of him. My condolences.” He’s speaking from experience, she realizes with a slow start. And Alessandra might be getting drunker by the second, but she’s not stupid, and so she connects the dots and feels her jaw drop until it might hit the counter.

 

“Oh my god, you got played by Juno Steel.” Rex bristles.

“I was not  _ played,  _ Alessandra.” He seems affronted by the very idea, but denies nothing else, and Alessandra can’t help but grin at the absurdity of it all.

“Holy shit. That’s a hell of a coincidence.” 

“Only so many men in Hyperion City, I suppose. Fewer still that meddle enough for this to occur.” 

“True.” She frowns a little, “So much for treating ‘that guy’ right, then.” Rex shrugs.

“He wasn’t necessarily talking about me.” But now that she’s met him, she knows without a shadow of a doubt that Juno was; she can practically see his sarcastic exterior melting over the cheekbones and eyelashes and sharp wit that make up the man sighing into his glass next to her.

“What happened? You don’t have to tell me, I already said I’m not interrogating you--” She remembers something and cuts herself off, frowning. “Only,” she gently points to a nasty slash across Rex’s clavicle. “He didn’t, right? Rex shakes his head quickly.

“No, of course not. Not Juno.”  _ Juno.  _ He says the name like...Alessandra doesn’t know quite how to explain it, but it makes her want to march across Hyperion City and drag Juno Steel back here by the collar. Rex continues. 

“It’s nothing, really. Similar to your situation.” Alessandra already knows that it’s absolutely not. “I helped out on one of his cases, and then a little while later I was brought on to another one. We...got along very well, and when I woke up this morning, he’d left.” Rex’s tone is nonchalant, but there’s a deep, underlying hurt somewhere in it. If Alessandra had to guess, she imagines this goes a lot deeper than one particularly shitty one-night stand.  _ Still.  _

“That  _ dick. _ ” She takes another long sip of her drink. “I’m gonna punch him the next time I see him.”

“Please don’t.” She flails a hand vaguely in Rex’s direction.

“Oh, don’t worry, as much as I’d love to tear Steel a new one over this, I wouldn’t tell him it was about you. I’d just punch him.” Rex’s mouth quirks a little, which was her intention. 

“As tempting as that is, I’d still ask that you don’t assault him.”

“You’re right. Too much liability.” Rex’s lips turn up again, and this time they stay there. Alessandra sets the glass down with a dramatic thud. “God though, I can’t believe he did that. I mean, I can, but I’m not happy about it. I feel like a disappointed mother.”

“Disturbing, considering the circumstances,” Rex quips. She glares at him. 

“You know what I mean. He’s just--ughh!” 

“My thoughts exactly.” She sighs and looks up at him.

“If it’s any comfort, it’s probably not a you thing. I think he probably liked you a lot.” Rex’s smile slips a little, so she barrels through. “Juno just has this thing where like, he doesn’t feel right or good and so he throws himself into oncoming traffic--”

“Or into a locked room with a bomb.” It’s barely above a mutter.

“You’re shitting me.” he shakes his head. “Christ Rex, he  _ did  _ that?” Rex nods solemnly. Alessandra half-laughs with disbelief. “Alright, I take it back, I get my ‘Complain About Juno Steel’ license revoked because that totally takes the cake.” She thinks for a moment. “Though eating a Martian artifact was pretty fucked up.”

“Oh, indeed. I’m fairly certain that one led to my situation, so I’ll give you that.” He picks up his drink and gives it a death glare she hopes he will one day get to turn on Juno. 

“Well, you know what, Rex?”

“What, Alessandra?” 

“I had my thing with Juno and then crazy stuff happened and I met my partner, and I like her a hell of a lot. So, I’m sure the same thing is gonna happen for you.” She gestures broadly, trying to articulate the thought in her head. “You’ll get Juno but like, two years down the line after he’s had some deeply moving character arc that teaches him to stop being such a self-sacrificing shithead.” Rex snorts.

“That does sound like my ideal man.” She grins at him.

“See, that’s A+ detective work right there.” She looks up at him again. “I mean it though.” She pokes him lightly in the chest. “I’ve known you for maybe half an hour, but I can tell that you deserve someone who’s ready to deserve you, too.” He nods, almost embarrassed. So, she grabs her almost-empty glass and raises it towards him. “Until then, Fuck Juno Steel.” Rex laughs again, soft and short. He raises his own near-empty glass and connects it with hers, the  _ clink  _ ringing out in the deserted bar.

“Fuck Juno Steel.” He agrees, with all the solemness of a prayer. They both down the rest of the liquor, and Alessandra signals for yet another round. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> working title for this was "fuck juno steel" btw. 
> 
> Leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed, and feel free to check out my other stuff. I have a couple penumbra wips in progress, so stay tuned~


End file.
